From selling paan to owning his own Port, Kolkata-born Nikhil Gandhi’s journey

Here is an unlikely success story of a guy Nikhil Gandhi, who had faced so many struggles in his young age to follow his dreams. A 20-year old boy (In 1980s) having degree in Bachelor of commerce was struggling hard for his survival because despite of having degree, there was absolutely no way he could put his education to use. With nobody to help him monetarily, he acquired to do lowly careers just to buy enough food and sustain of waking time. And for that, he started selling famous beetle leaves from Kolkata to a seller in Bombay. Twice a month he boarded the congested, unreserved train from Kolkata to Mumbai and would spend around 30 several hours squatting near to the stinky lavatories in sweltering heat just so he could get some water now and then and sprinkle it on the 4, 500 beetle leaves that this individual carried. He then bought some toys with whatever money he received by selling those leaves and again went through the same excruciating journey and sold those toys in Kolkata. This whole exercise would fetch him a meager sum of Rs 200 but Nikhil was happy with the learning that came in addition to this tough time. He was being revealed to industry, business world and above all the location of dreams Mumbai.

But Today, 56-year-old Nikhil (the same guy) lives in a swanky high-rise in Napean Sea which is one of the extremely expensive areas in Mumbai and moves around in a chauffeur-driven Merc E series. So how did his life experience this massive & successful change? How did a guy who was fighting with poverty for his survival embark on to build a networth of Rs 2, 500 crore?

More than three decades back he came Mumbai and been informed by someone that American indian Navy wanted to buy some brooms and pieces of cleaning cloth. So he decided to be the supplier of that consignment in any way and put his 100% in that. Because of his hardwork, Just within time he was able to supply 80, 500 country-made brooms to Bombay Port Trust (BPT) and 1, 00, 000 parts of cleaning cloth to the Indian Navy. It was the very first time when Nikhil tasted success and developed contacts within BPT which led him to become a mass drug supplier.

He was making good money with his contract business and happy with his work. In 1990, he had a deep wish to visit the birthplace of his father which was in Gujarat. When he was exploring the area, he came to Pipavav which had a sprawling, vacant coast to it. He decided to make a port there. And thus managed to meet the then chief minister Chimanbhai Patel and got all the approvals needed for expanding a port in PipalavThis was another milestone for him so as a celebratory gesture he paid a pilgrimage to Shirdi. Here he met a politician who was impressed with everything that Nikhil had achieved till now and introduced him to Dhirubhai Ambani. His trip of defeating poverty and talent of sniffing potential in infrastructure cast a spell on Dhirubhai and he taught Gandhi the virtues of identifying growth-oriented ventures ahead of their time, and executing them on time.

From then on he started out heavily making an investment in the infrastructure and built India’s first private all-weather seaport in the mid-nineties. Then he proceeded to go on to notch another first: a 50: 40 joint venture with Native american indian Railways to run box trains over 260 kilometer between Pipavav port and the Saurashtra region. This individual also constructed a 20-km, four-lane road connecting the port with the Gujarat state highway.

Anil Ambani with Nikhil Gandhi at his shipbuilding facility in Gujarat

Total investment in these three projects was nearly $250 million which evidently reveals a lot about pondering big and thinking in advance of times. In 2015, Reliance bought Nikhil’s Pipavav Defence for Rs 2, 085 in an all-cash deal.

Gandhi has overrode several struggles in his life and has always managed to discover a way through the difficulties. He is an inspiration for every individual who face troubles in their life but despite want to achieve something great in life. Today, Nikhil Gandhi’s networth is more than Rs 2,500 crore and still he spends his time lecturing students at Ivy Little league B-schools like Wharton.

About Divya Gupta

Divya is a skilled business developer and the conceptual mind behind bold and bright ideas. She has an eye for the smallest detail which defines her work. She can reflect and analyze work like nobody else and never lets the bigger picture escape from sight. Sometimes she says – Let’s do it all over again!